On 2013-01-03 00:59, Jim Starluck wrote:
Oh, and by the way? That game where you guess a ship tier, type, faction and role combo and I'll give you the layout if there is one? That's good for everyone, for the rest of the thread.

On 2013-01-03 00:59, Jim Starluck wrote:
Oh, and by the way? That game where you guess a ship tier, type, faction and role combo and I'll give you the layout if there is one? That's good for everyone, for the rest of the thread.

Are we going to be seeing a Cannon/Cannon layout for a T2 ICC Destroyer? Something like that would be perfectly fitting, though I'm not sure if 2x the same role is something you'll be doing or not. I can also see a beam/beam T2 luth Destroyer fitting them, or a Torp/Torp UGTO Destroyer.

Though I AM wondering what will be done with Scouts since you already said they'll be limited to T1 only, it seems like each faction would probably have 2 Scout layouts each since there's only so much you can do with single role. I'd guess 1 EW for the standard Beacon layout and 1 something else. My guess would be ICC gets a Cannon Scout and there's some tie in with the fluff descriptions between that and the Border Cruiser.

And this is more of a question than a guess, but are we going to be seeing anything like the current Strike Cruiser with cores on non-Dread hulls?

On 2013-01-03 00:59, Jim Starluck wrote:
You think I posted the actual, official ship design document on the public forum?
I'll be honest here, chlorophyll: you're trying my patience a bit arguing about two specific layouts like this. I wrote this entire design system in a cave, with a box of scraps, so please don't act like you know it better than I do.

On 2013-01-03 00:59, Jim Starluck wrote:
- Beams
-- Talent: +1 Fore armor, no EWar gadgets, cannot be combined with EWar role
-- K'Luth Faction Talent: -1 Reactor, ELF Beams allowed

On 2013-01-03 00:59, Jim Starluck wrote:
Oooh, this should be fun. Because I'm a nice guy, I'll play a game with you. If you can correctly guess the layout of a ship that I've already designed, I'll post it here in the thread.

On 2013-01-03 00:59, Jim Starluck wrote:
When a faction's natural strengths play towards a certain role, they tend to have more ships using that role at various tiers. It's why ICC has more missile ships, why UGTO has more Carrier ships, and why K'Luth are liable to have more Beam ships.

On 2013-01-02 18:26, Walrus of Apathy wrote:
We're going for 5-6 per class per tier, except for T3's which get one.

Jim Starluck wrote:
(Apologies to the UGTO; I don't have a Cruiser layout ready for them at the moment)
Once again, my apologies to the K'luth for not having a Dreadnought layout ready.

On 2013-01-03 14:22, Walrus of Apathy wrote:

No, or at least incredibly doubtful.

While I can see why they would fit, that level of specialization is being saved for T1's. Otherwise you'd graduate out of the T1's and get this T2 ship that has this same role but even more better at it, as T2's have more role points to spend on gadgets, and it would make the T1's useless. The whole point of this system is to keep any ships from being superflous like many people say our current system does.

Scout are going to be single role, all T1's, but right now we have that each faction gets 5 scouts. Each faction will get a Cannon, a Beam, a Torpedo, a Bomber, and an EWAR scout.

The purpose of each faction getting the same styles of scouts is to help new players. Scouts are all they get, bar the extractor and basic transport, so I wanted to give them access to each of the basic weapons types right off the bat, no matter which faction they picked first. So each faction gets basically the same scouts, bar factional differences like K'luth's cloak.

The EWAR scout is also in there so each faction has their beacon ship.

Very sparingly. It may happen occasionaly on certain layouts but don't expect to be rocking loads of core weapons on them.

On 2013-01-03 14:45, Bladerunner2014 wrote:

Please donot respond by saying prestige gain is easier then ever or something ridiculous like that. Or that my lack of prestige gain is lack of skill. It usually comes down to circumstance: how many enemies online, how many allies online, lag, etc...things that are beyond anyone's control.
FOR EXAMPLE: Currently If Kluth are invading R-33 and I am the only UGTO player on (which happens all the time) I will lose alot of prestige to stop them...however, if I am going to need to put prestige on a pedestal, I guess I'll have to ignore the invasion, or just log off game till more UGTO players on...This is just one example, there are many more you can think of.

I am confused as to why everyone is clueless to this. But when this tier system takes effect, the rest of you will see then.

How many players will ever actually become CM...not many. I understand that rank should have its priviledges, but what player below CM will engage in a fight with a tier3 dread..not many, why lose prestige for nothing? The rank bar for tier 3 ships is too high at CM, it should be at Marshall.

The current Bomber Scouts are ignored because the Bomber Frigate is just plain superior in every respect. A Scout with 1 bomb gadget can't even kill a single structure before it has to reload, it can kill troops but that's about it.

A Beam scout would be similarly unused, a few CL on a Scout would be pretty ineffective as a combat ship, even against other Scouts. I can't really think of a use for a Scout with a few beams aside from swapping them to PD variants and loading it with speed enh to chase down Fighters.

.....Actually, that sounds like fun. Hell yeah bring on the beam Scouts.

Torp Scouts are badass though, mostly because they can fit a lot of Torps since they use such a ridiculously low amount of points in a layout.

Cannon Scouts are also great even though they can't fit as many weapons as a Torp Scout, but the longer range gives them more leeway.

On 2013-01-03 15:49, Walrus of Apathy wrote:

It's all a matter of what you can expect to do with such a little ship, no one expects a Bomber Scout to glass a planet, and it's more meant for light harying early in a scenario game for example. From a gameplay perspective it's more meant to teach newcomers the basics of bombing before they grow up to the bomber frigs and dessies that are actually used more for planets attacks.

I hate to rain on the parade a bit here, but PD beams and regular CLs/Disrupters are going to be distinct weapons now, you won't be able to swap CLs for Pulse Beams anymore. To compensate however, every ship is going to have at least 1 full arc PD beam, and most ships will have even more. Escort role ships are going to specialize in PD for fleet support.

To be clear, CLs won't be able to point defense anymore, but each faction will get a version of the Pulse Beam and the ERL.

Back to the Scouts, I imagined the beam scouts being used to hary utility ships and transports. And while you don't think they'll be able to do much damage, due to the quirks of the ship design system we use, the Beam Scouts ended up with more weapons comparatively than their cannon or torpedo counterparts. Hopefully that makes you feel better about them.

Basic cannons, beams and torpedos cost the same number of points in a layout, so the cannon scouts do actually have the same weapons numbers more-or-less than the torpedo scouts.

On 2013-01-03 14:45, Bladerunner2014 wrote:
I see one major problem with this new ship tier system:

How many players will ever actually become CM...not many. I understand that rank should have its priviledges, but what player below CM will engage in a fight with a tier3 dread..not many, why lose prestige for nothing? The rank bar for tier 3 ships is too high at CM, it should be at Marshall.

Players already complain all the time about how much prestige they lose in certain ships, because of how many ships they have to kill to gain it back. Playing it safe to limit prestige loss will make the game boring.

Basically, prestige gain needs to be increased or prestige loss needs to be decreased if you leave the tier 3 ships earned at CM.

Please donot respond by saying prestige gain is easier then ever or something ridiculous like that. Or that my lack of prestige gain is lack of skill. It usually comes down to circumstance: how many enemies online, how many allies online, lag, etc...things that are beyond anyone's control.
FOR EXAMPLE: Currently If Kluth are invading R-33 and I am the only UGTO player on (which happens all the time) I will lose alot of prestige to stop them...however, if I am going to need to put prestige on a pedestal, I guess I'll have to ignore the invasion, or just log off game till more UGTO players on...This is just one example, there are many more you can think of.

I am confused as to why everyone is clueless to this. But when this tier system takes effect, the rest of you will see then.



[ This Message was edited by: Bladerunner2014 on 2013-01-03 14:45 ]

On 2013-01-03 02:56, SpaceAdmiral wrote:

Hmm in that case let's "guess" the role combos that you *cough* already hinted at *cough*.

How will the
UGTO Tier 2 Carrier/Cannon Dread
compare with the
ICC Tier 3 Carrier/Cannon/EWAR Dread?

On 2013-01-03 14:27, chlorophyll wrote:

Yes. I trust everything you say. I was so exciting that I can't control emotion and accidentally disturb you, Jim. I'm so sorry.
But, I have just questioned about the contradict/mysterious that anyone may find after reading the posts again. You told half story, some options were open and so I asked. And the more I asked, more truth revealed. However, I was naive, and my writings did unawarely not respect you. I apologize.

We have 10 roles: Cannons, Beams, Torpedoes, Missiles, Carrier, E-War, Escort, Bomber, Minelayer, Command. Pairs of role that never combine: beam & e-war; carrier & missle.

Some make no sense to combine or very ineffective: station, mine & bomber; torpedo & e-war; fighter & beam; destroyer & e-war, escort; dread, station & e-war. Carrier, Command is only available on cruiser, dreadnaught and station. There is also a hint:

Quote:

On 2013-01-03 00:59, Jim Starluck wrote: When a faction's natural strengths play towards a certain role, they tend to have more ships using that role at various tiers. It's why ICC has more missile ships, why UGTO has more Carrier ships, and why K'Luth are liable to have more Beam ships.

UGTO and ICC share same missles!
Well I think natural strength of: UGTO is beam as they have flux beam; ICC is bombing, cannon and torpedo as they have PSM and faster & longer range gun, torp; K'Luth is fighter, bomber and missle as PSI is a good cannon at medium range for fighter, cloak helps bombing a lot, and shroud missle is deadly to ship which has no ECCM nor scanner (although it's not powerful but an entire volley can bypass PD thanks of negative signature). That's just my opinion.

Quote:

On 2013-01-02 18:26, Walrus of Apathy wrote: We're going for 5-6 per class per tier, except for T3's which get one.

5 T1, 5 T2 and 1 T3 to guess.

I presume:
K'Luth
T3 Cruiser: Scale (beam, torpedo, cannon). I prefer missle, torpedo and cannon. Shroud is a wonderful missle after all.

T2 Cruiser: Scarab (minelayer, torpedo). Obviously.

T1 Cruiser: Piercer (command). Should "aura" put into command role?

K'Luth T1 Cruiser: Carrier. This one is premier. K'Luth fighter has PSI, and PSI is damn good.

T2 Dread: Ganglia (missle, torpedo). It's nice.

T1: Mandible (beam). Suggest 2 Aux gen and 5 ELF. 1 aux gen will be not enough to fulfill Assault disruptors, like Parasite case. You can even exchange 1 disruptor to have 2 aux gen, Jim. Trust me about 2 aux gen, many Luth have said about that.

T2 Dread: Brood (command, bomber). Unlike command human dread, cloak makes bombing much easier; thus I love to bomb then build with this one.

ICC
T2 Cruiser: Heavy (cannon, torpedo). Acient but most popular. This combo is always a success.

T1 Cruiser: Missle (missle). Typical ICC.

T1 Cruiser: M-235I (command). Again, aura?

T2 Cruiser: Escort (torpedo, escort). Escort ship will have many beams, so torpedo sounds more logical than cannon.

T2 Dread: M-318C (command, cannon). Even we don't know how "command module" function, the current model (command, fighter) has been hated and we're happy to get rid of it.

T2 Dread: M-400B (bomber, cannon). PSM and Heavy gauss gun combo allows this dread to bomb outside of dico plus pushing transport away. Reasonable combo for the bomber master.

UGTO
T3 Cruiser: ST-34 (beam, torpedo, cannon). This one and the elite RSM dread (joke again) are son and father.

T1 Cruiser: ST-35. aura, yes, but what?

T2 Cruiser: ST-39 (missle, mine). If it is pure T1 missle, it's just like ICC.

T1 Cruiser: ST-36 Battle (torpedo). Let's see how good new UGTO torpedo is.

T2 Cruiser: ST-40 Strategic Bomber (bomber, ewar). E-war is the reason why this ship is named "strategic".

I read news about fighter, missle and beam. They're splended. But command and aura are still mysterious. Maybe you should rename "command" role to "aura" because it reflects more precisely how the ship affects.

Btw, players tend to believe the default gadgets, such as IE drive, are the best. And they don't bother exploring alternative gadget. This time, I hope you and Walrus will introduce more alternative gadgets as the default layout for the ship. We will see PFE, AFE, AME, albative, reflective, skirmish shield... more often. Reflective the inside armor, PFE on beam ship etc...

On 2013-01-03 14:45, Bladerunner2014 wrote:
I see one major problem with this new ship tier system:

How many players will ever actually become CM...not many. I understand that rank should have its priviledges, but what player below CM will engage in a fight with a tier3 dread..not many, why lose prestige for nothing? The rank bar for tier 3 ships is too high at CM, it should be at Marshall.

Players already complain all the time about how much prestige they lose in certain ships, because of how many ships they have to kill to gain it back. Playing it safe to limit prestige loss will make the game boring.

Basically, prestige gain needs to be increased or prestige loss needs to be decreased if you leave the tier 3 ships earned at CM.

Please donot respond by saying prestige gain is easier then ever or something ridiculous like that. Or that my lack of prestige gain is lack of skill. It usually comes down to circumstance: how many enemies online, how many allies online, lag, etc...things that are beyond anyone's control.
FOR EXAMPLE: Currently If Kluth are invading R-33 and I am the only UGTO player on (which happens all the time) I will lose alot of prestige to stop them...however, if I am going to need to put prestige on a pedestal, I guess I'll have to ignore the invasion, or just log off game till more UGTO players on...This is just one example, there are many more you can think of.

I am confused as to why everyone is clueless to this. But when this tier system takes effect, the rest of you will see then.

On 2013-01-03 18:27, Walrus of Apathy wrote:
Why don't you see some of the Scout proposals for yourself?

ICC Customs Corvette - Cannon Role

1x Tachyon Drive
1x IE Drive
4x Active Shield (1F 1S 1P 1A)
1x Composite Armor (Full)

1x Full Arc PD Beam
2x Dual Arc Heavy Railguns (1FS 1FP)
2x Dual Arc Railguns (1AS 1AP)
1x Fore Arc Railgun

2x ECCM
1x Aux Reactor

K'luth Mosquito - Beam Role

1x AMJD
1x AME Drive
5x Organic Armor (1F 1S 1P 1A 1Full)
1x Cloak

1x Full Arc PD Beam
1x Tri Arc ELF Beam (FSP)
2x Dual Arc Disrupter (FS FP)
2x Fore Arc Disrupter

UGTO Assault Corvette - Torpedo Role

1x Tachyon Drive
1x IE Drive
5x Standard Armor (1F 1S 1P 1A 1Full)

1x Full Arc PD Beam
4x Dual Arc Proton Torpedo Launcher(2FS 2FP)
1x Tri Arc Proton Torpedo Launcher (ASP)

2x ECCM
1x Aux Reactor

Please note these layouts are still merely proposals at this point and are in no way final.